An Imaginary Waterfall

Peggy, the art rep from Pictures Plus who filled the Keauhou Sheraton with giant prints of my artwork a few years back, asked me to do a very fast painting for the new lobby at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Honolulu. This was to be a "small" painting to be blown up into gigantic mural size to decorate a 24' tall wall at one end. Maybe this is the trend of the future to avoid the expense of an actual mural. I had to do this whole 4' x 8' waterfall painting with bamboo, similar to one I did at the Kaanapali Shores a while back. Here's the old painting with me in front of it, and the new one in my studio.

Pareo Production at the Studio

When I first contemplated putting up this agricultural building for my studio I envisioned a spare, contemporary space devoid of clutter, something that could appear in Dwell Magazine. Well, five years later it has taken on the jammed, scattered and hurricane-struck look of a sloppy artist's workroom.

That said, here are shots of the studio with my friend/helper/apprentice Ben Ellis working on a stencil design. Tuko and I printed pareos, fabric wrap-arounds popular in Polynesia, in preparation for next week's Merrie Monarch festival, which we hope will bring customers into the gallery for souveniers. I used my paper stencil of a turtle.

Here is also a shot of a big new painting of the coastline at Opihikao which I am hoping will actually make it into Dwell Magazine. The painting is for my friends Mike Kurokawa and Paul Fishman, who recently built a house designed by Craig Steely, which is going to be photographed by the Dwell crew in a couple of weeks.

At Opihikao & the warm ponds....

After the massive winter rains we seized some afternoons to paint at our new favorite place, where a tidal pond shelters from crashing surf and the red road dips down in one of its famous beauty spots just south of Opihikao. We also joined the Friday Art Day group in the pavilion at the Warm Ponds, where Ken is working on a permanent decoration, and Mike was polishing up one of his watercolor paintings.

Roof of the World

I haven't been to the top of Mauna Kea recently, and it's been covered with snow this winter. So I jumped at the chance to have Craig and Tuko drive me up in his valiant little Honda, along with my house partner Bob and our friend John, both visiting from California.

After leaving Hilo we wound up the saddle road until it came close to a kipuka that I'd never seen before. We climbed a fence and entered a wondrous world of unspoiled native Hawaiian plants of every variety, and native birds clamoring overhead in their rare and fabulous voices. I wish it weren't so, but such a pure environment is very scarce these days, and I was very surprised to find it just yards from the road.

At the visitors' center high on the flanks of the mountain, we rested an hour and admired the intensely reflective and geometrically spectacular silversword plants.

Finally crawling slowly up to the top, we found ourselves in a World of Winter, with cindercones smoothly dusted and glazed with white snow. What an amazing contrast to the coastlines far below, where we romp daily on warm sand and frolic with dolphins in the bay.

Kalani Art Event

Puna gets hip, Thanks to Kalani.

My Big Island Paintings

I received a request several weeks ago from a customer at HawaiiArt.com to show her what paintings of the Big Island I have available at this time. I stalled for so long that perhaps she has found another artist to collect, but nevertheless here is a group of my paintings from the gallery. For a price list one could email me directly at arthurjohnsen@hotmail.com or aj@arthurjohnsen.com.

New at the Gallery

Yesterday Cosette brought in this amazing large orchid painting, Go Cosette!! We hung it high on a wall but will have to find a more prominent place for it soon.









I took some photos of the gallery windows, full of my hanging "ornaments," many of which are actually small paintings that happen to be two-sided and hanging on a line so they spin in the breeze. Call me crazy, but the holiday season gives me an excuse to be craftsy and creative in that more graphic and abstract way. You can also see a few of my new pareo prints.

I also photographed "my" wall, just as a record of how it looks at the moment. The large Kaua'i painting of Hanalei Bay needs to get shipped off to Germany soon. I'm hoping to trade out most of the other island paintings for Big Island, botanical or figurative themes soon.